Ultraviolence
by circxe
Summary: "These violent delights have violent ends." He used to call me DN. That stood for deadly nightshade. Cause I was filled with poison, but blessed with beauty and rage. In which the lion becomes the lamb, the saviour becomes the slaughtered. Or when a leader rises from the ashes of another. [Negan Origin story; Negan/OC]
1. dissonance

" _I'm eating_ _all your kings and queens._  
 _All your sex and your diamonds."_

* * *

 **They would never have met, if it weren't for the end of the world.**

In the aftermath of the destruction and the chaos, the dead killing the living, he had lost everything while she had gained everything. It was the only logical route for her to take; saving people's lives in order to survive. With numbers came safety, and that was the only reason she had picked his pathetic ass up from the deep gutter he had fallen into. Decay and gore almost obscured him, lying in a pit of waste with a heavy stench that most would recoil at.

He groaned as his head throbbed with a dull ache, phosphenes dancing across his blurred vision. Debris pressed into his back uncomfortably and he swore that he had bruises decorating his entire body. The mid afternoon sun beating against his skin was disorientating and he wished it would stop. Boots crunching on gravel caught his attention and he peered up at a woman with short brown hair.

Her voice was strong and reassuring, like the grip of her calloused hands that were stained with crimson blood. Green eyes bore into his murky depths, penetrating his soul and calculating his worth. He didn't even know how he had ended up there, everything was lost in a haze of disparate despondency. There was little to be misunderstood however; only one thing mattered now and that was the preservation of the human race.

She bent down so that she was eye level with him, and he thought that she was more beautiful than his late wife. It was a thought that sickened him, revealing his repulsive and hideous nature. Yet it was the truth, and that made him hate everything else all the more. The woman had no idea who he was, what he had done, but neither did she care. To her, all things were malleable when applied with enough pressure. That was just the kind of woman that she was; tough as the nails she used to gouge eyeballs with.

"What's your name?" she asked.

He contemplated on lying, but what was the use? The rubble that surrounded them was evidence enough that whatever societal foundations that civilisation had once built was now crumbled ash. Things such as convention had no more place in the new world, and he learned that quicker than anyone else.

"Negan." His voice was rough and scratchy, like his salt and pepper beard that covered half his face and making him look like some kind of rugged vagabond.

"You got a destination?" She cocked her head down the road that was littered with decomposing corpses.

"No," he answered.

"Then I'll give you one." Her tone suggested that she wasn't giving him a choice.

"And why the fuck is that?" he asked.

"Because." She shrugged her shoulder casually, as if nothing mattered. It probably didn't. Then she nodded towards a young man behind her dressed in ripped jeans and a flannel shirt, unruly dark hair falling into his sunburnt face. He came forwards and grabbed hold of Negan, pulling him up to a stand with a loud grunt. The woman stood at the same time, adjusting the strap of the rifle by her side as if it was a normal day to go shopping.

"So, Negan," she started with a smirk. "Welcome to your new life. It's gonna be a hell of a ride."

Positioning her thumb and finger between her lips, she whistled sharply towards the open expanse of the blown-to-high-shit-heaven city in front of them. There was the sound of engines revving nearby, gleeful hoots and hollers wildly filling the air. Negan looked around, only just realising that he was surrounded by a dozen motorcycles. Each rider held an arsenal of weapons equipped on their bodies; guns and metal crowbars, wooden pikes with shards of glass taped on, jagged edged shovels.

He gawked in awe, never having seen a gathering of such colourful people before in his life. Especially with how things were now, seeing an actual living person seemed like a miracle on its own right. The woman cocked her head in his direction as she got on her dusty black bike.

"Hurry up, shitface, we ain't got all day," she said impatiently.

Almost hesitantly, he walked forwards and settled himself behind her. His arms circled around her thin waist, an act that he thought should be intimate and restricted. He wasn't dumb, he could tell that she was the leader of this gang- this bunch of outlaw survivors. It was probably because they didn't follow any rules that they were able to survive. He had to give up most of his own morals and desires to do that. There was still a part of him that had no idea why he had chosen to live past the point of no return.

"Comfy back there?" She smirked at him again as her foot pushed down on the starter pedal. "You'll just gotta ride with me until we get you your own bike."

"Who are you?" He finally asked the question that had been irritating his mind.

"I'm the person who saved your stupid ass from this shithole," she said flippantly.

The motorcycle roared to life and they started to zoom down the broken road with the rest of her entourage trailing along behind them. The wind felt good against his face, momentarily allowing him to forget about everything else. Ruined buildings and desiccated bodies flashed by in a daze.

"What am I supposed to call you?" he frowned in mild annoyance.

She was a hellblazer, a streak of fire falling from the sky, furious and mad with reckless abandon. The world hung on the edge of her fingertips from marionette strings, dancing to a tune that only she knew. His chest trembled, blood quickening, soul departing, as he lost himself to the heady rush of euphoria that she offered to him.

"My name is Cersei."

* * *

 ** _CAST LIST_**

Negan : Jeffrey Dean Morgan  
Cersei : Lena Headey  
Heath : Kit Harington  
Drew: Jared Leto  
Kitty : Margot Robbie  
Trevor : Will Smith  
Minotaur : Dave Bautista  
Ghost : Karen Fukuhara


	2. carnage

_"Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy_  
 _I'm on fire, I'm rotting to the core."_

* * *

 **T** he sun quickly faded into twilight, but they continued to ride on in the dark with only Cersei's headlights as a guide. Unbeknownst to him, he had managed to doze off against her back and he opened his eyes to a sea of inky blackness. He half expected to see grisly faces smiling back at him with peeling flesh and unhinged jaws, but he only saw the sunburnt kid with messy hair riding beside them.

His back ached, muscles sore and restless from being prone in one position for too many hours. He had lost touch with time and reality, blindly following a woman with seemingly sociopathic tendencies. She had never told him what their destination actually was, but he thought that he already knew the answer to that. The destination was wherever the hell she was going, even if that was hell itself.

He found it admirable that she was able to command a group like this on her own. Eventually, they slowed down after arriving at the outskirts of a small town. A lone building stood off on its own to their side, the abandoned remnant of a storage house from the looks of it. Everyone switched off their engines and flashlights were brought out to illuminate the area in multiple flickers.

Cersei held her hand up and they listened to the silence of the night. Then, almost inaudibly, they could hear the soft thump-thump-thump of drumming from inside the warehouse.

"Heath, Drew, and you Three Stooges," she hissed as she slid off the motorcycle like a cat on the prowl. Her eyes glanced at Negan before she grabbed hold of his shirt. "You too, big guy. Let's see what you're actually made of."

He frowned unhappily as he stumbled off the bike from her manhandling. Someone tossed him a handgun and he made sure to check that it was loaded. Without standing on ceremony, Cersei led them towards the back of the warehouse where the soft bumps were coming from. They could see at least three cold bodies behind the grimy glass window. A louder thump resounded as one of the biters slammed against the screen and Cersei let out an annoyed sigh.

"Shouldn't be more than half a dozen," Heath guessed, his flannel shirt now tied around his waist as he only donned a white singlet.

"Then let's go, go, go!" One of the Three Stooges, a blonde female with pigtails, cheered loudly. She couldn't have been older than nineteen though. Next to her was a dark skinned man wearing a skull mask over the lower half of his face, and their last companion was a burly stoic man who looked more like a bull.

Like he thought before; colourful.

Drew was a muscular wiry thing that was literally covered in tattoos and piercings. "What if there's even more inside?" he asked.

"Then we kill them," Cersei replied, cocking her rifle in hand before pausing in thought. "We should probably try doing this quietly first. Don't want to draw any unwanted attention, do we?"

"I like it old fashioned." The blonde crooned with a manic grin. She slid a knife from her belt and licked the blade. Negan thought that was disgusting, knowing she had probably stabbed a few dead things with it beforehand. The girl would be one of those people who died of infection from a cut or something equally moronic.

Cersei slid a machete and a dagger from a belt. "Hey." She threw the dagger to Negan and he managed to catch it easily with his already honed reflexes. Her eyes continued to appraise him, and there was a flicker of regard at the small display of capability. Heath and Drew went to position themselves next to the door. With a nod from Cersei, they pried the entryway open while the rest of the group tensed their muscles in anticipation.

The first biter shambled towards them and Blondie tackled it to the ground, driving her knife deep into its skull. She cheered as she dislodged the blade, pulling it out with great flourish to splash blood and brain bits onto the floor. The other two biters from the window ambled towards her with outstretched arms, but were quickly dispatched by the masked guy with a sabre.

"Trevor!" Blondie whined. "They were mine!"

"You snooze, you lose," he replied, moving forwards to cut down another biter.

"Kitty, I swear to God." Cersei shook her head, pausing next to her to survey the warehouse interior. It was dark but filled with rusting shelves, bars of metal and hanging chains with hooks on the ends.

Kitty looked up at her and grinned widely. "Hey, Boss," she said as if seeing the woman for the first time.

"Just shut up, Kitty," Cersei sighed as she joined Trevor deeper within the building. Sounds of metal slicing through flesh penetrated through the air.

"Sure thing, Boss," the girl said, picking herself up from the ground and following after her.

Negan stepped inside after Heath, gun and dagger held tightly in both hands. He could hear the grunts and hoots of the others as they put the biters to rest once and for all, the smell of rank flesh filling his nostrils the farther in he went. There was one in front of him, an elderly man who still wore a cap and overalls. Half his face had been gnawed off, bone and torn muscle dangling out of holes from his cheek. A slimy, bony hand extended towards him and he dug the dagger in his hand through the reanimated man's soft skull.

The biter fell to the ground as he pulled his dagger out, turning around to be faced with the gaping face of an old woman that snuck up on him. Decaying teeth snapped loudly as the biter lunged forwards, soiled hands clawing at his clothes. Negan let out a yell as he struggled with the living corpse, as if death had granted it strength that living beings were incapable of.

He tripped over the cold body he just killed on the ground and slammed his back against the metal shelves behind him with a rough jolt. The biter on top of him snarled and hissed from deep within its throat, nails scratching into his skin. With a feral yell, he pushed against the undead woman like a battering ram. It shuffled backwards, losing balance from clumsy fractured feet, and Negan grabbed a fistful of thin white hair to impale its head against a protruding metal bar.

He breathed heavily once it stopped moving, grabbing his gun and holding it up in the air. Cersei looked back at him calmly, a streak of blood splattered across her chest. Her eyes shone with indiscernible emotion as another smirk spread across her face. She had removed her leather jacket, exposing the smooth taut muscles of her arms. There was a certain resemblance in her figure to a Celtic warrior returning from a hunt.

"Aren't you positively beastly?" she chuckled. "I think my knickers have gotten a bit damp."

Negan lowered his gun back to his side as Cersei walked away, leaving him ultimately bemused.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 _my mind is telling me noooo but my body... my body is saying yeesssss_

 _i'm really enjoying writing this story mostly because a lot of negan fanfics are set in season 6/7 or about negan's daughter lol. so this fic is gonna be all about smol bean negan before he got his lovely bat. i dig it. please leave a review if you like this story! i wanna know what you think & thank you for reading!_


	3. distraction

_"Search for pleasure, search for pain_  
 _In this world now I am undying"_

* * *

 **C** ersei drew open the front entrance of the warehouse with a loud stridulous sound. Trevor managed to find a light switch and the electricity surged the bulbs back to life, shining towards the group outside like a beacon. The woman looked at them lightly, her lips pulled back in a smug grin.

"All aboard, shitfaces," she announced.

A young Asian woman leaning against her motorcycle at the front of the gang grunted out a scoff in greeting. "About time, I was falling asleep."

"You're _really_ aching to reach your namesake, aren't you, Ghost?" Cersei gave a short laugh before barking out more orders. "Someone clean this shit up and burn the bodies. I want a lookout on each wall in three hour shifts."

Negan watched from the back of the warehouse as Trevor dragged a chain across the ground with an agonisingly annoying sound. He then speared the hook at the end of the chain into one of the corpses. On the opposite end, Drew started to pull on the chain through the pulley above them and suspend the corpse in midair.

"Whoooo-heeeee!" Kitty twirled in the middle of the warehouse before throwing her knife upwards. She cackled as the blade seared through the greyed flesh of the body and lodged inside its rotten innards.

He grimaced with a disturbed expression as the rest of the gang chorused with laughter at the display. Cersei appeared in front of him then, having observed everything with her hawk-like eyes. She gave him a smile that actually seemed genuine and warm, like a mother welcoming a new child to the family. Negan felt all his senses heighten under her attention, knowing that she was as unpredictable as a loose canon.

"Come on," she said to him with a gesture. "Follow me."

He watched her turn towards the metal stairwell nearby, spiralling up to a balcony overlooking the area, before following her lead. Their heavy footsteps echoed with a reverberating ring as they ascended the steps, coming to a stop next to a broken down control panel that might have been used for the hooks lining the ceiling a long time ago. Cersei leaned against the thin railing, stained copper from the rust filings that coated the once wrought iron metal.

"You don't like it," she stated. "I get that. There's a reason why I let them do it though."

"What reason is that?" he asked when she hadn't continued.

She crossed her arms and looked up at him, causing his nerves to grate from her incessant stare.

"Stop looking at me like that!" he snapped.

She seemed taken aback by his outburst, jerking her head slightly backwards. "Like what?" she asked in a bemused tone.

"Like I'm some kind of fucking race horse," he asserted heatedly.

Negan swore he could feel his blood boiling when the woman threw her head back and laughed loudly, earning a few glances their way from down below. Apparently, she found his exclamation to be absolutely hilarious as she broke down in slight hysterics. What the fuck was wrong with these people?

"Oh, you're cute," she finally said after recovering her dignity. "I definitely like you."

"The fuck is that supposed to mean?" he sneered.

She beamed at him widely before her expression suddenly grew somber, eyes darkening a fraction. Negan found his muscles were able to relax when he saw that she was now being serious with him. He hated games, they always made him angry- that is, angrier than usual. Anger had always been something that he found himself waking up to on most mornings, though he had never figured out why that was.

"The reason I let them do that is because I don't want them to be afraid," she told him. "It gives them something to practice on, to vent, whatever floats their boats. The newbies get used to seeing shit like that too, they become more independent, able to look out for themselves and others. Fuck, we all need that now."

"So the whole tough gal thing, that all an act?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Her eyes flickered to his sharply, like a sword being drawn in the dark, and there was a tense pause before she broke out into another entertained smile.

"Hm." She made a sound that resembled a small chuckle. "Ain't that a good question?"

"Why all of this?" He waved a hand to the gang of rowdy outlaws below. "You startin' an army or some shit?"

"Look here, tough guy," she started in a low voice. "I never asked for this shit but the world fucking ended so whaddya think the chances are you're gonna be able to survive out there on your own, huh? We got something good startin' here. It's like a well oiled machine. You got the engine parts, the body, the wheels and cushions, and then you got-"

"The driver," he finished for her.

"Yeah," she smirked. "Finally getting the picture?"

"You wanna rebuild the human race," he said thoughtfully.

"Nah, man, I just want to fucking live," she told him earnestly.

"So you've been trying to find a place for me." He looked at her with furrowed brows. "What do you have?"

"I still don't know." She huffed. "Usually I'd be able to tell right off the bat, but you... you got a certain something."

He scoffed at her, unable to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "You talk like you know shit."

"I do know shit." She turned around to look out over the balcony, spreading her arms out on either side to grasp hold of the railing with her half gloved hands. His eyes glided over her slim figure, drinking in every curve of her lithe body. "And I have something in store for you. But not yet though. Not just yet."

They lapsed into a silence, with Negan not really knowing what else to say to that or what to do with himself. He thought that maybe he had offended her. It didn't seem like Cersei was going to share anything more with him so he started to descend the spiral stairs back down to the ground. She let him go without even a single glance in his direction, her gaze set steadily on the opposite window where the moon hung in the dark sky like a luminescent pearl.

A couple of fires had been started in metal bins and the Three Stooges had finally thrown the corpse they'd hung up earlier into the bonfire outside. The heavy scent of smoke filled the air, making his nose twitch while bathing everything around them in an orange glow. He settled himself in a corner, apart from everyone else, leaning against a wall. The deep murmurs from the group fell into background noise as he stared at a bloodstain on the floor.

"Hey." A voice called from nearby and Negan looked up at Heath who was handing him a packet of chips. The older man accepted it with a curt nod, deciding that he should take whatever he could get. To his chagrin, Heath decided to sit down next to him with his own bar of melted chocolate wafer. "I guess Cersei had the talk with you."

"If by talk you mean trying to make me her bitch?" he responded snidely.

Heath laughed in amusement as he took a bite from his chocolate. "You know she's my cousin?"

"Oh, yeah?" Negan gave him a sideway glance.

"My mother was a whore, don't know who my father was." The younger man shrugged. "Cersei raised me ever since I could remember. We used to sell drugs and illegal weapons to other gangs to feed ourselves. You have to be tough in that line of business, know what I mean?"

"I don't."

"None of them knew each other before shit hit the fan." Heath gestured towards the others milling about the warehouse. "Cersei found them all. Rescued them from biters or just came across stragglers on the road. She brought us all together, made us into this band."

"What'd she promise them?" Negan asked with pronounced scepticism.

"Survival," he replied simply. "If anyone knows how to do that, it's Cersei."

Heath pushed himself up from the ground then and gave Negan a pat on the arm before telling him to get some shut eye. He then moved himself to the other side of the warehouse where the Three Stooges were huddled together in a corner with blankets. Negan watched them whisper to each other before he turned his gaze away.

His eyes met with Cersei's as she looked back at him from the balcony, and he thought about what the world had been reduced to. When moments like this, being able to sit around without having to constantly look over his shoulder were considered to be an uncommon luxury. He wondered about his wife, what had become of her, whether she was roaming an empty street with milky unseeing eyes.

For the first time in weeks, he fell into a deep and undisturbed sleep.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 _i chose cersei to be a more mature woman because she's supposed to be really experienced and i think that would only come from years of trial and error. i think negan is canonically in his 40s? so cersei is in her mid 30s. she's younger than him but she knows more stuff cause she's actually been out there pre-apocalypse. and well according to robert kirkman, negan was just a phys ed teacher and nobody really listened to him, and i think that's kinda amazing to see how he transforms into the bamf we now know._

 _what am i talking about?_

 _please leave a review and let me know what you think!_


	4. accelerate

_"You've got no place to hide  
And I'm feeling like a villain, got a hunger inside."_

* * *

 **M** orning came too early for Negan's liking when the warm hazy glow from the sun kissed his skin intrusively. The muscles in his face contracted into a slight frown that intensified when someone roughly kicked at his foot. He forced his eyelids to peel open and saw a ghoulish white face bending over him.

"Jesus motherfucking Christ!" he yelled out, jumping in a fright as his hands automatically flew up to shield himself.

Ghost took her mask off and sniggered at him. "Wakey wakey." She grinned crookedly before straightening up and planting a hand on her hip. "Or we'll use you as bait for the biters."

He glared up at her in irritation, clearly not in the mood for jokes especially after having just been rudely awoken. Ghost shrugged her shoulders and told him that they were moving out before walking away. Negan rubbed his face with a hand, yawning widely and stretching out his limbs. When he finally mustered enough willpower to face the others again, he stood up and headed towards the entrance.

Everybody was already assembled outside on their bikes, seemingly waiting for him to join them. He felt slightly self-conscious as he walked towards Ghost who was cleaning a katana with a white hilt. It was a beautiful piece of craftmanship, with its regal golden hand guard and glinting single-edged blade. The woman looked up at him and slid the sword back into the scabbard tied to her belt.

"Can you be any slower?" she complained.

He ignored her and looked around at the group, who all seemed bored of their very existence. "Where's Cersei?" he asked.

"She went ahead to scout out the town with Heath earlier," Ghost replied. "Wanted to give everyone else a couple more hours of sleep. So you're gonna ride with me to town."

Negan let out an exasperated sigh as he begrudgingly climbed onto the bike behind her. The rest of the group took that as a sign to start their own engines, exhaust fumes quickly thickening the air. He had to thank god that Ghost rode a Harley, so he didn't find the need to hold her for support and was comfortable with simply resting his hands on his thighs.

"I don't like it any more than you do, big guy," Ghost raised her voice over the roar of the motorcycle revving to life.

He shook his head even though she couldn't see him, and they sped down the road towards the town in the distance. It was a normal looking neighbourhood, probably only spanning a five mile radius. There was something off about the area further west though as they came up a hill, allowing them to have a higher vantage point to examine the buildings. Definitely something off about it- but he couldn't figure out what it was.

"Holy fucking shit." Drew suddenly screeched to a halt when his eyes caught the same discrepancy that Negan had. "That's a lot of fucking cold bodies."

Ghost stopped as well, prompting the rest of the entourage to pause at the crest. Her narrowed eyes scanned the scene in front of them, and a deep frown etched itself onto her tanned face. Negan craned his head over her shoulder, trying to make out exactly what it was that they were looking at. Then it finally dawned on him, with the information that Drew had provided. A barbed wire fence had been erected across half the town, probably from when it used to be an industrial area by the looks of the factory behind it. Behind the barrier, however, was about a hundred over wriggling biters pushing and flailing their arms against the meshwork.

"Damn, that don't look too good," Ghost commented before starting her bike again. "C'mon, let's just find Cersei and figure things out."

They drove carefully forwards this time, keeping a look out on all sides for any unwanted surprises. Eventually, the road entered a stretch of greenery that fringed them on either sides. The tarmac remained smooth and almost untouched, showing exactly how untravelled the route was. They drove on for around twenty minutes before the first house reared up in their field of vision. Not too far away, Cersei was standing around with a cigarette between her lips as she leaned against a black jeep. Heath's legs could be seen protruding out from underneath the vehicle as he presumably tried to fix a loose component.

"Glad you could join us," Cersei greeted them by blowing out a billow of smoke into the air.

"Did you see the horde further west?" Ghost immediately asked as she got off her bike.

Negan followed suit and was quick to make sure he still had his weapons from last night on him. He made a mental note to find some equipment with more security later. How had he managed to survive all this time anyway? Everything that had happened after he ran out of the hospital was still a blur to him, like some kind of fever induced dream.

"Yeah, just as long as the fences hold, we'll be fine," Cersei said reassuringly. "Just don't head too close west."

"Did you find anything?" Ghost eyed the Jeep appraisingly.

"Yeah." Cersei grinned as she turned to Negan, dully slapping the side of the car twice. "We got buddy over here a ride. Ain't a bike, but it'll do, right? Beats hanging on to me like a fucking spider monkey."

He shook his head, choosing to ignore the last part of what she'd said. "Great," he grunted out.

"Somebody pissed in his morning coffee?" she smirked, green eyes sliding back to Ghost who simply shrugged innocently. "Anyway, I managed to scrounge up a bit more food nearby. Haven't visited the rest of the houses past the crossroads, so you could probably bring a few guys out to have a look around. Most of them cold ones are camped behind that fence anyway."

"Sounds peachy," Ghost responded before looking over her shoulder towards a tall brown skinned man. "Yo, Andre, your men feelin' up for a walk this morning?"

"You don't even have to ask," the man grinned back at her.

But before either of them could take a step forwards, a high pitched shriek pierced through the air. Negan had seen them coming before he heard their cries of help. Two young women, a redhead draped over the shoulder of a blonde, were limping towards their group at a frenzied gait. Behind them, a small horde of shambling biters had given chase to the unfortunate females. His head automatically turned to Cersei without him meaning to and she watched the women nonchalantly.

"They look injured," Ghost observed. If she was concerned, her voice did nothing to give it away.

"Aren't you gonna help them?" Negan asked.

Cersei shrugged. "If you care so much, why not help them yourself?"

The women looked like they had been on the road for a very long time, their skin caked in dirt with stringy oily hair. For some reason, the sight of them struggling across the town with biters on their heels sent an ill feeling inside his gut. They were completely helpless, with only a baseball bat gripped uselessly in the blonde's hand as she used her remaining strength to hold her friend upright. He watched as she stumbled, almost dropping her injured friend onto the ground.

"Oh, fuck it," he growled before running forwards to help them.

He heard Kitty laugh, her amused voice calling after him, but he let it bounce off his back. The redhead had finally reached the end of her energy reserve as she fell to her knees, while the blonde swiftly turned around to fend a biter off with her baseball bat. The jaw of the deceased fractured easily from her swing, and she took the opportunity to bash the biter's head into the ground.

"Help us, please!" she pleaded when she saw him.

Negan fired a few shots at the nearest biters before grabbing hold of the redhead's arm to pull her back onto her feet. She let out a sharp cry of pain which prompted him to pause to reassess the situation.

"She can't run, she sprained her ankle!" The blonde ran back to them with wide terrified eyes. She looked even more disheveled up close, now splattered in blackened blood.

"Hell," Negan sighed before picking the woman up in his arms. She wrapped her arms weakly around his neck, translucent green eyes brimming red with tears. He then turned towards the blonde to make sure she was ready. "C'mon, lets go!"

They hurried away from the advancing horde, shambling and groaning with their rotten flesh. It was always the putrid smell of decay that got to him, like a festering blister filled with raw maggots. His teeth were set on edge as he saw Cersei casually walking forwards to them, cocking her assault rifle with a deadly glint in her eyes. Trailing along, Ghost and the Three Stooges backed her up with their own guns.

"Hey," Cersei called to him with a nod as they passed by. "Good job."

By the tone of her voice, he swore that he had just undergone some kind of test or ritual. As he set the redhead down on the ground by a tree, the blonde collapsed on the grass next to her. "Thank you. Thank you so much," she gushed endlessly with gratitude, throwing herself at his feet, amidst the barrage of bullets firing behind them.

Maybe that was the cycle of things, and he would later learn was true, that the saved would become saviours. And as the woman gasped and shuddered in front of him, tears streaming down her face to stain her cheeks, he thought that there was another reason that he had saved them. Somehow, inexplicably, maybe, he was trying to save himself.

* * *

 **Playing: Monsters || Ruelle**

 **CAST:**

Cara Delevigne as **HALEY  
** Sophie Turner as **EMMA**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 _maybe you might have noticed it, but ghost's katana and haley's (the blonde) baseball bat are indeed the infamous weapons that we see on the show haha. i just really like the idea that things don't get lost, but their legacies live on with another person or even under a different purpose. and this kind of reincarnation thing will be a running theme throughout the story._

 _plus also changed the title because i thought it'd fit better._

 _please leave a review, that would mean the world to me! and i'd love to know what you think about the characters, or how you think negan's story will turn out!_


	5. renage

_"So death is coming_  
 _To purge this town."_

* * *

 **N** egan had absolutely no idea what he had gotten himself into now. Once the pack of biters had been cut down by Cersei and her comrades, they'd went down the rows of houses to look for more food. The woman in charge of their band wanted to get the two lost birds he'd picked up clean and ready to go. So once Ghost had found a place with a backup generator and running water, he was tasked to keep an eye out at the front door while the girls had a shower.

He ran a hand over his face tiredly, readjusting the rifle in his arms and crossing his legs at the ankle while he leaned against the fencepost. His fingers brushed over his beard and he contemplated on finding a razor to shave it off after the girls were done with the bathroom. On the opposite side of the street, the Three Stooges were raiding another house. Kitty was yelling out the window at Trevor about finding some comic books. Their big bullish friend, who they had aptly nicknamed as Minotaur, was thumbing through a book on the front porch. Apparently, he was a mute, or he just didn't talk. Nobody knew.

The door to the house behind him opened softly and the blonde woman walked down the steps towards him. She looked a lot healthier than when he first met her three hours ago, smooth bronze skin glowing radiant and he caught a whiff of strawberries from her damp hair. Blue eyes looked up at him and she smiled prettily.

"I'm Haley," she said in a slightly raspy voice.

"Negan." He glanced at her, taking note of how young she was.

"Emma is my step-sister." She gestured back to the house. "She sprained her ankle pretty badly. I'm really glad we bumped into you guys. We've been out there on our own for over three weeks."

"How'd the two of you survive on your own?" he asked.

"Well, I'm pretty good at hitting things," she told him. "And Em can sniff food out from a mile away."

He chuckled, a deep rolling sound that he surprised himself with from how long it had been. "The two of you sound like the perfect fucking team."

Haley grinned back, her eyes twinkling with admiration, and he didn't particularly mind the attention. He remembered how some of his students used to look at him like that, making him bask in all its glory.

A while later, Emma emerged from the house smelling of shower gel and shampoo. The redhead smiled shyly at Negan before quickly turning her gaze away. She stood on Haley's other side, quietly surveying the street as she picked out the rest of the gang that was currently house shopping. It was easy to tell from her inquisitive eyes that she was hiding a brilliant mind behind her uneasy silence.

"Hello, little birds," Cersei appeared from out of nowhere to greet them with a croon. It was like the woman was lying in wait for the perfect opportunity to spring a trap on them. "Haley and Emma, right?"

She was definitely every-fucking-where.

They nodded their heads in sync and Negan could see that a spark had ignited behind Emma's eyes, the kind of light that was eager to satiate itself. He watched as Cersei regarded them with her usual astute gaze before breaking into a warmhearted smile.

"Come on, follow me," she finally gestured with a hand, moving past them into the house.

Negan was curious as to what she had to say to them, wondering if it was the same cock and bull story that she told everyone. He waited a beat before following them inside. The door opened soundlessly and he crept down the hallway. Cersei had led them into the living room, which was decorated fully in lace that made him want to gag at how ridiculous it looked. The brunette was leaning against the window with her arms crossed as the other two were sat on the couch.

"So you were out there on your own for a while," she started. "That's really impressive."

Emma turned her body to face the woman fully, green eyes sharp and crisp to match hers. "Please let us stay with you."

Cersei laughed softly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to throw you back out there after our friend heroically saved you." She inclined her head towards the redhead's ankle. "You shouldn't be out there with an injury like that anyway."

"We can deal with it," Haley cut in. "It's not a problem."

"I don't doubt that." Cersei shifted to peer outside. "But people are a scarce resource nowadays. It'd be a shame to let two capable individuals to waste away. Definitely... a pity."

"What do you want us to do?" Haley asked.

"We have very simple rules," the woman told them. "We save you, then you save others too. We all help each other, everybody wins."

Emma frowned and Cersei was somehow able to sense it without turning around.

"You're sceptical," she stated. "I get it. But you wouldn't know if it'd work unless you try it, right?"

"So if we stay with you..." Emma started. "What exactly will you do with us?"

"Other than ensure your safety?" Cersei looked over her shoulder at them. "Well... it'd certainly be nice to have some decent company for a change."

Emma smiled at that and she winked back, her eyes glancing briefly in Negan's direction before looking back out the window. Haley had noticed the small exchange, and turned around to look at him. Her lips turned upwards when their eyes met before he slunk away and headed upstairs.

Cersei was a real damn fucking piece of work, he thought as he made no attempt to mask his heavy footfalls ascending the wooden steps. He went into the bathroom and wiped the thick condensed fog from the mirror, noting that the man staring back at him had seen better doggone days. Opening the cabinet, he found the razor he'd been hoping for and some shaving cream to boot. It must be his lucky day. He decided to make quick use of the shower first before tackling the task of shaving his overgrown beard.

Just as he was applying the shaving foam to his jaw line, the door flew open behind him. Cersei stared at him through the reflection in the mirror as he used it to glare back.

"What the fuck do you want?" he snapped.

"I heard the water was off and wanted a shower," she responded smoothly, nudging the towel draped over her arm.

"If you hadn't fucking noticed, I'm still here," he said as she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. She then presumed to take her clothes off. "Well, dollface, if you really wanted us to get naked that bad, all you had to do was ask."

"I like you, Negan, but not today," she responded in her underwear before slipping behind the shower curtain and out of view. She then took off the remainder of her clothing and dropped them on the white tiled floor.

"You're a fucking tease," he commented lightly. "What, have I lost my touch?"

He let out a low laugh that rumbled deep within his chest as he picked up the razor from the sink and started to carve a line through his beard. Cersei turned the water on and the droplets pelted noisily against the ceramic bathtub. Steam started to stain the mirror once again and he had to wipe the condensation with the palm of his hand.

She was done at the same time as he was and it felt so agonisingly domestic that he had to inwardly cringe at the thought of it. Cersei sat at the edge of the bathtub, towel wrapped tightly over her body as she rubbed some lotion onto her legs. Negan stroked his now smooth chin, feeling a little bit more like his old self again. It also didn't escape his notice that he'd lost a few extra pounds, though that didn't surprise him in the least.

"Yeah, yeah, you're so handsome," Cersei said as she stood up and he glanced in her direction, almost forgetting that she was still there. She started to push him out of the bathroom and down the corridor. "Go get dressed, you damn narcissist."

He pretended to be upset. "But where's the fun in that?"

She laughed, her bubbly smile shining through her eyes to melt away her aloof demeanour. For a brief moment, he thought that he was taking a glimpse of the woman that she was supposed to be. That underneath the cool, ruthless and resilient façade was actually an aching soul that was all feminine warmth. It reminded him a lot of the things that he lost; what they all did.

"Sure, be my guest, be a walkin' target for the biters," she told him. "I'll even paint a sign on your back for you."

He simply smiled at her, an act that seemingly caught her off-guard as her grin faltered slightly. She gazed back at him for a second before stepping into the bedroom, muttering to herself about getting decent. He went along to rifle through the drawers, finding some male clothes that were only slightly loose around the edges. They'd have probably fit him snugly a month or two ago. Cersei went to get dressed in the next room and they met downstairs looking brand spanking new.

"Hello, dollface," he smirked at her.

She opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by a sharp whistle from outside.

"Pack your shit up!" Drew hollered. "Fence broke down! We got an incoming!"

"Right on time," Cersei said wryly before moving around him towards the door.

He followed her out the door where the gang was scrambling to get their stuff together, and climbing onto their bikes. Heath waved at him from a few feet away and threw the key to the Jeep at him. From around the last house on the street, he could see the first wave of biters ambling towards them with clumsy, misaligned steps.

"You're with him in the car," Cersei nodded towards the two girls, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder in Negan's direction. It was like the woman in the house had never existed as she sauntered down the tarmac in all her intrepidity, like a storm sweeping over nations.

He strode towards the Jeep and unlocked it, pulling the car door wide open. Haley and Emma hastily joined him, with the older blonde riding shotgun at his side. Negan started the car and rolled the window down to keep an ear out for any directions. The snarls and gnashing teeth behind them grew louder by the second, interrupted only by the sound of engines.

Cheers and hollers pierced through the air with temerarious zeal as the gang streaked down the road.

"Eat my dirt, fuckers!" Kitty screamed as she rode by.

"Let's go!" Cersei slapped on the hood of his car before taking off.

Negan stamped his foot on the pedal, driving past the rest of the houses on the street towards the edge of town. Haley stuck her head out of the car window and threw a middle finger up at the horde that shrunk away from the sideview mirror. They passed a sign that read 'Goodbye Renage' in thick blocky letters, leaving the small town to be swarmed by the walking dead.

* * *

 **Playing: Hunt You Down || The Hit House ft. Ruby Friedman**

 **AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

 _i have this whole insane backstory planned for lucille but tbh i'd probably die inside if robert kirkman decided to reveal that negan always had his trusty baseball bat the entire time lol oh well. btw do you prefer jeffrey dean morgan with or without a beard because i simply cannot decide. i'm not much a beard person because i think it itches but hot damn JDM rocks it so hard ay papi._

 _just gonna bury myself rn._

 _thank you for reading, your reviews really warm my heart and i love you guys sm! keep the negan love comin' xx_


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